


Phoenix and Lantern

by ceceliatarleton



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, M/M, POV First Person, Star-crossed, Vampires, akuroku halloween fic exchange, mild depiction of blood and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceceliatarleton/pseuds/ceceliatarleton
Summary: Roxas reflects on the man he met and lost twice, someone he could have loved.
Relationships: Axel/Roxas (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Phoenix and Lantern

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xyzcl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyzcl/gifts).



> Written for the Akuroku Halloween Fic Exchange. My partner is the wonderful Leon. The prompts were: pumpkins, masquerade first meetings, fake blood shenanigans, or anything with vampires or demons or lycans. I tried my best to incorporate all options and to make it fun. I hope you like it, Leon! Happy Halloween!

The world was meant to be mine. That was what my father had always said, with a tinge of drama and more than a pinch of an ominous feel even when I was younger. I was supposed to be inspired, I suppose. To see anything I aspired to or desired as inevitably fated to be mine and thus emboldened to strike out with confidence to obtain it. If my father could only see me now, in ripped jeans a size too big for me and a black shirt emblazoned with the word "life" in large green letters, handing lemons to drunk, stoned college students who didn't even get the pun. 

To be fair though, he'd probably actually be impressed, and think I'd taken his words to heart as they were meant, letting them lead me to a grand fate. I had magic after all, sitting in my pocket in the form of an android phone with a cracked screen, two or three generations too old, but keeping me connected to all the universe had to offer nonetheless. I had my very own metal dragon sitting outside, ready to whisk me away at speeds he never could have fathomed, as soon as I'd drunk my fill and found some okay looking guy to pull into a dark corner for a few minutes--not necessarily in that order but we'll get to that in a moment. I had countless other marvels I could name at my fingertips as well, or would have been able to name if I wasn't so hungry at least. I'd also learned how to cheat death.

You see, my father died centuries ago and I'm a vampire. You may have figured that out somewhere in my clever monologue. I'm not really that good with this dramatic introduction stuff. I've had less practice than one might think. Typically, there's not much call for it when you're planning to erase someone's memory or they already know you're undead. 

I'm not that good with my human cover story either, but that's not been a problem in decades. Most people stumble through talking about themselves, and, if I forget details, well, having strong opinions about music decades old or wars even longer past doesn't even stand out as odd in modern times, and taking a long time to summon basic facts such as your age or where you grew up can get you an odd look, but it can just as often get you a commiserative one. We've all been there where your mind draws a blank. Basic human experience, not just for those who have celebrated more than one centennial. 

I didn't want to come to the party in the first place. Xion had insisted, repeating the far from compelling urging that, "It's Halloween! It's our night!" even after I'd wore out every version of the equally tired glib joke, "Sorry, I'm nonpracticing."

She'd gotten me with the low blow. "You'll never find him again if you don't get out there and mingle." I wasn't likely to find him again no matter what I did, and especially not at a frat party at an American university. Not necessarily because it was too low brow. More because of how hard it was to grab and keep the spotlight. He liked all eyes on him so he could dare the crowd to find his guarded secrets and befuddle them with secrets he gave away for free. 

Most of all, because America had fallen out of fashion. It had been en vogue when Xion and I came over, but now the country seemed posed to go the way of the fireworks they acted like they invented and should represent them. A big shiny boom but short lived and gone into smoke and lingering smells. I didn't know where the next nexus was or if the Old Ones were to go back to fully dispersed, disconnected covens and families. There was the internet now to unite us as it did otherworld spanning populations, but it was difficult to tell the real from the skilled poser, and easy for groups to become invaded and corrupted by overzealous roleplayers and conspiracy theorist hunters. Plus, there is an annoyingly large section of holdout vampires that still refuse to entertain the fad of the television much less the internet. 

He could be one of those that refused to assimilate, even if only out of taste not fear of not being able to adapt or thinking the trend would fade. He'd been a recluse when I'd first met him. Then again, who hadn't been a mysterious hermit in those days?

My phoenix, my shining lantern could be anywhere, doing just about anything, other than maybe lifeguard at a beach. I wasn't going to find him again. Finding him twice had been a miracle. Losing him twice, a curse.

I'd loved him, not necessarily at first sight, though I could conjure the image in my mind even now of him effortlessly dominating the ballroom, towering over everyone. Legs that went on for a country mile that would have been stilts on anyone else, and should have been on him too, no matter how strong his calves and thighs looked in pants tailored almost to a point of indecency--an "almost" he'd resent--but he somehow managed to pull off long and lean in every limb without looking the scarecrow.

No, scarecrows wouldn't have come to mind then. Perhaps jester. He should have been jester for that and more. Hair brighter than the dyed crimson of his jacket, all the vibrancy and color of flame, scarlet brought to brilliance with blond undertones mixed with darker lowlights interrupting the red. Eyes of poison and magic shining behind a mask of gold and red feathers. Full lips seemingly designed to carry a smirk even while in motion, drawing you into a shared joke. Another possible deformity that he managed to wear as charm, an integral part of the spell he weaved, since it pointed to his mouth being ever so slightly lopsided. 

Beautiful. I can see him and describe him, but never capture what made him handsome, just know he was to me. More than human even before I learned the truth. There were other details more conventional around the lopsided mouth. Dimples of course and jaw sharp enough to use as a weapon, but it was the crooked mouth and bird legs that made him most loveable. 

I loved him not at first sight, but soon enough after, when I saw him see me across the room, and he left behind a group of admirers crowded around him without more than two words so he could ask me to dance. "Now and until the musicians drop from exhaustion."

"Sir, I fear you have the wrong impression," I told him and wondered what magic Naminé had woven into my black and blue feathered mask, because I did not feel as if I cut a figure in any way feminine, and still far less attractive.

"No, but if we are lucky then the rest of the room will, and have a grand time trying to guess which of us is a woman dressed to deceive, or if we are both in on what is undoubtedly an amusing jest in their eyes. If we are not, then those that recognize me will say I am deservedly called inscrutable, and those that recognize you will say...What they will say is not my business, but yours, and if you are frightened or you do not think your reputation could withstand, or, in fact, be improved by a night in the arms of a handsome rogue, then you too can just consider the offer a joke and withdrawn. But I assure you, angry mobs are hardly ever utilized, at least at polite functions, and never effective when I am there to combat them. 

If offense was to be taken, I must warn you not to challenge me to duel, for I _will_ win. Trying to send me to the gallows or whatever other horrid invention is even less advisable. I would suggest just taking my hand and letting me lead." 

That was the speech, more or less, that won me. Memory of so long ago is a dew covered spiderweb in many places, complicated, fragile, and difficult to make out, so the words may be paraphrased, but I remember the speed and confidence, and the spirit of the words. I was far too much a romantic and far too easily won in those days, but I already knew not to let it cloud my head. I knew I would dance, once I made him struggle to try and win the favor he'd already gained, but I also knew I would make sure he never gained my name or a face to describe to ask after me. I vowed a one night affair. Though he'd seemed more than human with some distance, close enough to touch he radiated warmth, which was a poor sign of him being anything but a mayfly creature, and that would lead to only trouble and sorrow. 

It should have occurred to me I could not hear the blood rushing in his veins and that he smelled only of spices and night air and not of sweat and the faint meat smell of human, but there were beating hearts all around us, and I was young enough to be confused, had fed recently enough not to feel my fangs prick at every racing pulse, and stubborn enough not to consider I was making a mistake and the one that would cause us unnecessary trouble and sorrow was to be me.

I remember the rest of the conversation as vividly as his first speech.

"Answer me one question first."

"Solve a riddle to win the treasure? Quainter diversion than is usually found at these parties." 

"Is it me you are drawn to or have you simply convinced all the well-bred ladies here that you are more enamored with your own voice than with them, and had one and all rebuff you?" I remember that was the first time in the entire evening I regretted my mask, having to trust a tilt of my head and tone alone to convey what I wanted, not even being able to rely on subtle expressiveness in the eyes, when I was thoroughly covered.

He was within his rights to take offense, but he did not, nor did he falter a moment, before continuing on in boldness centuries ahead of its time. "There are a few I have not driven away yet. I shall try harder. Wear boar tusks the next time since my fangs are not big enough to see, or just hope that when they see me in the arms of another they understand the lost cause."

"Persistent."

"And unused to having to be so to get what I want."

"Exercise is good for all muscles including charm."

"Please, educate me further." This time I took his offered hand and I didn't let it or him go until it was almost a new day. I would like to say we both stayed just as sharp in our bantering the whole night, but much is lost and what remains includes a lot of soft talk about families and dreams (nothing to hold back when you were hidden behind a mask and planned never to be seen again after) and mundane exchanges about affairs of the land. Those in power and how they ruled. What type of harvest the farmers had. 

We didn't hold to the phoenix's words, outside cursed shoes there are few ways to hold to dancing all night without ceasing, so there were rests, but we stayed by one another's side almost to witching hours, past any time where there would have been a stir with glass slippers left on stairs, until there was no more music and we'd either paid our host a great compliment or grossly outstayed our welcome. My mistake came when my stranger-no-longer in the phoenix mask asked if he could see me again.

I said yes. I named a time and place we could meet in secret in the woods far enough away from where we'd be recognized by any civilized company.

Despite urging from Naminé, I did not show up. She told me to see him, vocal that she was not on the side of romance; she merely thought it best that I see it through to the bewitchment broken with the rising of a different moon--or, more brutally, with the draining and disposal of my mysterious stranger. She was old even then, and gave the impression she was cynical with it. 

A devil's advocate more than any other description, I would soon learn. Her heart-so to speak-often differed from her prescriptions. She had floated another option, haughty and scornful enough I didn't know then it was her real recommendation with the commentary on making him a meal a test, suggesting my phoenix ask for her hand as a cover to make us an unremarkable family group of husband and wife with a down on their luck family member staying at their estate wherever we moved, that I turn him despite only knowing him one evening where I did not even discover his name, and prove my belief in love predestined. 

I wasn't romantic enough to take the bold approach. I didn't even have the boldness to see his face. I thought I would forget him faster if I didn't. All I did was ensure I didn't forget him at all. 

There was word a demon had been slain on the road through the forest. It had tried to make a group of travelers with a broken carriage its prey but had its black heart pierced with a broken wheel spoke. The man that told the tale wore a braid woven from hair he'd cut from the creature's head as a trophy. Red like fire with gold undertone. Few believed him or his companions since they brought no other proofs.

I believed him. Naminé and I left the next night.

I thought my phoenix dead, and myself responsible. I let him haunt me for what would have been a lifetime to one that still had life, and considered it light punishment. But like the phoenix I first met him as, he was to rise from the ashes.

The next time I met him it was another celebration, one more reckless with a wildly different code of dress and behavior. The tallest man--or what I thought was the tallest man-- in the village Naminé and I were passing through, on our way to meet Xion within the next few months, though neither of us knew it at the time, was dressed as a white mare, leading a parade of children from door to door to recite verses, though half the town was out beyond its limits at a bonfire, some of the more adventurous youths running around throwing burning wood at each other, mostly dodged, though some accidents happened while they paused too long after throwing their own pieces, blowing on burnt fingers, leaving themselves open for worse disasters. Some of the less inclined to other revels took refuge in the pub, not escaping the holiday completely as the tale of the Jack O' Lantern was being noisily recounted by a balding man that gave the impression he thought it was his job to entertain those inside as the white mare entertained the children.

"There once was a drunk named Stingy Jack. He was the meanest, drunkest, most dishonest, most miserly, reddest lump of man there ever were, but he had a tongue of silver that coulda talked the skin from the potato so he was generally put up with and folk forgot all abouta how loathsome respectable folk found the Jack when they were laughin' and havin' their cheeks hurt from smilin' as they spent their honest money on dishonest Stingy Jack's drink. 

Now, as golden throated as Jack was, his tricks could only work oncen or twicen before lessons were learned. So he was always looking for new suckers. It happened one night he invited the devil himself to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack had a coin but wouldn't pay even when he saw who was beside him and knew it may be the only way to save his black soul, so he convinced the Devil it would be a laugh if he turned into a coin, let Jack pay the bar tab with him, and then changed back and gave the poor barman a fright so bad the goat had another soul to reap. But once the devil was a coin, Jack slipped him in his pocket all sneaky, right next to a silver cross, which stopped him from turning into his natural form, and then ran out the back of the bar.

Jack agreed to free the devil, if he made a vow not to bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul.

The next year, Jack again tricked the devil into climbing into a tree to pick an apple, on account of apples being the devil's favorite fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack took a knife outa his pocket and carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that he could not come down until the devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Stingy Jack went on being a nuisance to all good and decent--and the not so decent as well--for years on, but eventually he died and his tricks caught up with him. God would not allow such an unsavory character into heaven, and the devil, upset by the tricks Stingy Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. So our Jack was sent off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out gourd and has been roaming the Earth with it ever since. That be where we get our Jack O' Lanterns to honor the old scoundrel who had none and to serve as a warning to the children not to go his bad way."

Most patrons barely listened and even fewer reacted. There were some calls for another story, a few scattered corrections that Jack hadn't driven the devil up a tree but down a well or other embellishments, and one loud flocker that called out jeers until the storyteller left his seat and asked if he wanted a fight out of it.

"I don't want a fight. I want to hear the real story for once. My name's never been Jack for one, and it was a witch not the devil."

Red hair that shone as if glowing ember in the low light, eyes like a cat, a crooked mouth amused at his own claim of immortality, and a voice from too many dreams, my phoenix lived, though I thought it was more my mind long lonely and guilty, desperate to recreate the old memory. 

"Tell the real story then," I urged the vision and he smiled at me, showing teeth and more, flashing fangs that only should have been exposed to feed for a moment before the grin was gone. His eyes knew me, despite it such a thing not being strictly possible, even when I didn't know him.

"Buy my next drink?" The question seemed a taunt.

"When the story is through," I told him, and the man who had been recounting Stingy Jack's legend previous complained, not knowing he was not just being snubbed a payment drink, but to become one if I could arrange it when my phoenix, the shining lantern was done.

"Honest, true Lea is our hero. Satan was going by the name Isa, a powerful witch who bespelled all who looked upon him, but bitter and jealous, hoarding love and control as a dragon hoards gold. Lea goaded the witch, saying that the way to prove his influence was to grant his favorite companion--one closer than a brother-- immunity to his magic to have them stay of their own free will. Lea knew he was the witch's favorite, but he had no plans to use his freedom once won, until he found Satan transforming himself to coins in his purse or apples in the orchard by his home in order to watch him every moment. So Lea spent the coins or threw them down wells, and the apples were picked and thrown in the dark of the larder. It was a laugh. Lea remained honest and true, but the witch grew more sure he was being betrayed. 

The witch called the creatures of the dark upon Lea's house and invited them across the threshold to tear Lea apart for transgressions he never committed, but Lea survived, changed but stronger, the curse of the demons Isa had let into his house passed into his blood. 

It would have been fitting revenge for Lea to turn his new monstrous power onto the satanic witch and consume him like Isa had meant for him to be consumed, but he spared his old friend, and simply left to wander the dark roads on his own for all time, with only a lit coal in a carved gourd to light his way."

There were objections of course, no short of good natured hecklers at the new twists and holes to be poked in both narrative and claim to be the protagonist, but Lea, my phoenix, my lantern, only answered my call. "Is Lea always to be alone? Too noble to join the other demons?"

"Not by half, " the green eyes glittered, "but if I told you of the fall from grace to villainy, and the type of demon I prefer, it would be too frightening a tale for most of the bar."

"I'd say your audience is more hardy than to grow white hair at tales of demons."

"I should return the storytelling duties to our fine friend here, before he has me run off, but if you want to join me at my table, mayhaps I can entertain you personally." There was no mention of the drink, but I had just learned we still had all the time in the world, so there were no concerns.

"Angry mobs are hardly ever utilized, at least at polite functions, and never effective when I am there to combat them," I threw back words from long before to combat his fear of being run off, foolish and sentimental, as they were a long stretch to fit the situation. I was still trying to confirm I could trust my memory and his recognition. 

Another flash of fang was all I needed, but I had hardly joined him when a wild haired youth ran into the pub, a girl hardly more than a child, pulse racing like a frightened rabbit, drawing attention and clouding the memory now until I remember the smell of the siren with her drumbeat heart, but not what few words I did manage to exchange with Lea. 

Did I remember to apologize? Did I tell him how often I had thought of him? If I didn't, would it have made a difference in how things played out?

The barman asked if there had been an accident at the bonfire, and the girl was almost jeered out of the bar when she said there wasn't, even though it was clear she had encountered some danger. She was almost as pale as me or Lea. In my memory I can see her veins below her skin, rivers of rushing blood, even though it's doubtful, even with my sight, I could have at the time. 

Matching the look of her, came the confession she'd seen a ghost, and a second round of jeers came, though she was allowed to tell her story by the charitable who sought to indulge her, whether she was truly frightened or a skilled actress looking to frighten. She had a hand mirror clutched in her hands, and it featured in the story she told as she took a seat and an offered mug of nerve-steadying elixir. She'd been running through the festivities, brandishing her mirror at unmarried young women so they could look into it and see the outline of the mate they would one day have standing behind them. There had been a woman in white with wispy blonde hair falling down her back standing close to the fire, watching chestnuts pop and blacken. She'd been alone and Racing Heart had run over to her, threw arms around her to welcome her as a sister and not a stranger, and put the mirror in front of her face. The lady had been cold to the touch, enough to raise gooseflesh on contact despite her proximity to the fire, and her reflection hadn't appeared in the mirror. It had shown an arm looped around nothing and the sky and revelers behind.

A ghost or demon was the only explanation and our brave recounter of the chilling tale had flown before her soul was snatched. The White Lady had called for her, her voice layered in magic that made running away like wading through molasses, but the innocent had escaped.

Lea and I locked eyes over our drinks. I tapped two fingers against my glass and I knew he took the nonverbal confirmation even though it was no official sign language.

The story was congratulated by some, laughed at by others, and, blessedly, not taken as fact by many present as far as I could tell. Those that did, seemed to take it in stride. Tonight was the night for communing with spirits after all (angry mobs hardly ever utilized, as long as you picked the right nights for mixing at least), and Stingy Jack himself was in the pub as some brazen souls mocked the truth, much to the girl with the mirror's ire, though a few more minutes of attention and company she seemed to lose some of her urgency and be more inclined to believe she may have been carried away by the atmosphere of the otherworldly in the night's festivities.

Despite the kind resolution, I knew the truth at the core of the story, just as I had with Lea, and I knew Naminé would have already fled in fear of exposure to the safe place we had arranged and would be moving on even from there before too long. I couldn't risk her seeing a stranger before she saw me and getting spooked, and I presumed my phoenix might have his own lingering business to wrap up or covenmates to alert, despite what his story had implied, but in low tones I asked Lea to meet us in an hour where the road split in the north halfway between that town and the next closest. 

I thought "come with us" didn't need to be said, and that, even if he had another life he could not throw away so carelessly over a few minutes rekindling of a one night romance, that his nod was as good as his word that he'd at least come for more open conversation, or to hear why I hadn't shown up before.

Instead, he paid me back. He wasn't there when promised. I waited even after sending Naminé on. I waited until an hour before dawn when I had to retreat back to the hidden sanctuary in the woods. The next night I took the risk of returning to look around the village and the pub I'd seen my lantern again in. I went south and looked for signs before catching up with Naminé days after.

He didn't want to be found, clearly, and if there was no trail then with only a night's head start, then I wasn't likely to find him lifetimes on. He was a story I told when old regrets and old flames were spoken of--a game I always lost to others who had seen true love sicken, die, and wither; had it hunt them and been betrayed; or turned new vampires who then walked out in the sun rather than live their new lives--or when the weather changed in the fall and pumpkins came out. 

It was wrong for Xion to use the fantasy as leverage, but worse that it had been so effective and left me feeling foolish and irritable, though some of the latter could be blamed as hunger.

That, I could fix. I spotted a long red ponytail hanging from the back of a head towering over others in the crowded room. It seemed fitting. 

One of the hosts, some insignificant fly of a mortal man with gray, red, and black paint smeared on his face to make him a zombie, was nearby so I grabbed him to ask "Who's that?"

I didn't mind showing interest. It wasn't as if I would drain him--even if it weren't for the danger and complication of leaving a body, Xion and Naminé weren't close enough to share and if you can imagine chugging a gallon of warmed-up soup then human eating habits have changed since my last clear recollection. A name would help me talk to him, claim to know him from class, and get him to follow me somewhere where I could steal a pint and leave him with a more traditional love bite to obscure the punctures, if I even felt like covering my tracks.

Though with my mood it seemed likely for the menu to take advantage of all opportunities a tall redhead presented, but it wasn't necessary. It used to be fang marks that could be seen as signs of the vampire was far more risky than arranging a disappearance or burying a body. Now, demons were laughable and humans even when not compelled to do so likely to rationalize an odd cluster of bug bites scratched raw or some other forgotten encounter than a visit by dark others. 

"That's Axel. He's a friend of the D.J."

There was an offer to arrange an introduction and some shameless comment about his ass, another new attitude of acceptance of a new era that I found an improvement. I didn't respond, already gliding off, shouldering my way through masses of bodies moving with varying degrees of coordination and interest to the music presided over by D. J. Demyx. Axel appeared to be on his way out and now that I had spotted him, he was the only meal I wanted.

He reached the door long before I reached him, unable to push people aside as I wanted or move quickly lest I be too obviously dogged about tracking him down and scare him off. It was proven to be the wrong worry to have when a voice shouted over the fade between one song and the next.

"Freeze, villain!" The music cut off and the crowd parted to show a man in a leather duster, with layered dark blue hair falling over the collar and squashed under a wide brimmed hat, with scars crossing his face. He held a large stake that looked as fake as his stilted, "Foul creature of the night, I have stalked you across the land, following your trail of blood, and now your reign of terror shall end!"

It cried stunt quite painfully, but it didn't matter when Axel turned from the door, baring very real fangs, and I saw his face. Phoenix and lantern in the dark wrapped in a billowing white shirt and tight pants that made him look more like a romance novel cover than a vampire, defying all odds by being in the room.

Then, the vampire hunter charged and the stake I pegged as hard foam drew a pungent spreading stain of red. I caught Axel-Lea-Phoenix before he hit the floor, not caring about exposure or the several exclamations and raised camera phones that met my stunt, not thinking at all, until I was snarling at the shocked hunter with my own fangs on full display, and I saw plastic sticking out of Axel's collar out of the corner of my eye and smelled the tang of animal blood for what it was.

"It's you, after all this time" Axel breathed in wonder, his expression lovestruck or a perfect act. He raised a hand as if to touch my face then dropped it, moaning, "Too late," and obscuring the situation further. "Avenge me!" He sagged to dead weight in my arms, leaving me and the still frozen vampire hunter, whose living heart I focused to hear, to figure out what to do. 

The hunter raised a brow and made a small motion with his stake, and despite wanting nothing more than to shake my idiot phoenix, I dropped Axel gently, growled again, and surged toward the hunter, perhaps overcompensating a bit with slower motion. He jabbed my shoulder with his stake and we grappled for a few moments, unsure how to end the sketch. I looked at his eyes for permission, and though I wasn't sure if I found it, I pushed him to the ground--easier to compensate for his height in our current situation when he was as tall as Axel--and bit his neck gently, trying my best to hold back and not prick his skin with my fangs. He howled gamely and went limp. I stood and bowed, collecting cheers I surely didn't deserve. Axel and his friend stood and joined me and then music started again. 

We were surrounded by congratulations for the stunt--clearly Axel and his friend had been somewhat arranged to help the entertainment-- and one nervous student, obviously one of the brothers of the house, who wanted to know where we had gotten the blood and if it was going to permanently stain where it had dripped. Xion and Naminé must have been both outside or upstairs, because they were not among those that crowded us. 

A dozen years seemed to pass before we were left alone, but it was still not long enough to plan what to say.

"Long time, no see," Axel waggled his brows, relishing in the underwhelming and cliché, damp shirt sticking not unattractively to his chest.

"I looked for you," I didn't do much better. I wasn't sure what I could say in front of his human friend dressed as the hunter who was still next to him.

"I did what I needed to. Some drunk saw my fangs and took my story a little too seriously. Followed me when I left to meet you, and so I couldn't. He was easy enough to get rid of, but I thought he might have had friends. I didn't want to bring them to you, so I went south instead of north. I went back the next week."

"Did you expect me to wait?"

"No, you hadn't before."

It was only the truth and what I deserved, but I wanted to defend myself. Axel continued before I found the right defense though, introducing his silent friend. "This is Isa."

"Satan?" I squawked, looking at what I now knew as a powerful, immortal witch and Axel's former and possibly once again...something. I'd always had my ideas about the signal language of "closer than a brother" Axel had used in his story, but far be it from me to impose.

"You told him that?" Isa snapped, corners of his mouth curved downward and brow furrowing.

"It's my go-to ice breaker," my phoenix grinned, before addressing me again. "Isa needs to leave." This seemed to be news to Isa, who was back to an impassive face and raised brows again. "He has a seven foot full-blood demon waiting for him at home. It's funny. He was the one who did the summoning and bound it to service, but he's the one that's whipped. Can't stay out late or Xemnas worries. "

"You two are friends again?" A question with a self-evident answer, but I still had hardly processed my lantern being in front of me again, much less the series of other revelations.

"Just friends," the clarification came, "But, yes, forever is a long time to hold a grudge." 

"And yet I may try it out again if you don't stop introducing me as Satan," Isa tossed out, then offered me a hand to shake. "Nice to meet you, whoever you are."

"The Raven," Axel explained, and then reminded me, unnecessarily. "Your mask the first time we met."

"I know. I remember everything about that night," I answered softly.

"I see the whole picture now, and I'll take my leave," Isa bowed out. "Raven."

"Roxas," I helped him out and jerked a hand in a half wave goodbye. "Do you need to go soon too?" I asked Axel, though I already flattered myself I knew the answer.

"I was going to, but I'm going to stick around now."

"Promise?"

"To dance until the music stops playing at least."


End file.
